Born Again
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: Smith in the centuries after war has taken to be not only the negative of the One, but his gaurdian. Smith watches over the young reincarnation of Neo, raises him, protects him. One shall live so that the other can be reborn. But Smith's end is coming.
1. Age 9

He was reloading his gun, like he always did, tossing the gun from one hand to the other and picking his pockets for more shells. Young brown eyes from the back seat of the car stared and watched, collecting the courage to speak up. The words began to gurgle in his throat, mixing with the snot that had slid down his throat from his stuffy nose from his growing tears. He didn't know how to say it, he didn't know how to tell him.

He just sat in the back seat, listening to the gunfire outside the car. Seraph had already jumped the hood out of side with only the sound of his machine guns left. And the young boy watch in horror, this was the third time in the last two hours. The third time they had come under fire, the third time someone had tried to kill him. And he could not stand it any more. Was this his life now? Was this all it was going to be? Avoiding cross fire? This wasn't what he wanted, he grew up wanting to be an engineer that's all, a simple dream, he had a knack for drawing and he thought he could improve upon ship designs, that is when he was unplugged from the Matrix, scheduled a month after his fifteenth birthday if he chose to do so. But was this it? Hiding all his life, what was he supposed to do anyway? What more was there to do?

So the boy watched the man in the suit, the man who had been there from his very birth, the man he saw as a guardian, and knew from the history books he was taught in school what this man had done. And he gurgled and tears came down, and he didn't know how to say it.

"Smith…" the young boy started. "I'm scared."

"There's no need to be." Smith told him in a monotonous voice, free of that thing called fear.

"What if you don't get them?"

"I will."

"Why?"

"Because that is what I do, Mr. Anderson."

"My name is not Thomas Anderson!"

"Would you prefer Neo?"

The boy tearful shook his head.

"That's what I thought." Smith said.

And Smith stepped out of the car and that boy heard six shots and a moment of silence where all he could hear was his own pathetic tears. And he thought to himself he couldn't be him. Neo would not cry like this. Neo would not be afraid. He couldn't be, he couldn't be Neo. Neo was a hero, he was the One, and if he was not the Messiah he still saved the all of humanity. He was the man people prayed to at night, or prayed for. He was not this man. He was just some kid, that's all he was.

That was when Seraph and Smith returned to the car, Smith wiping something that appeared to be blood from his fist and continuing onward. Smith turned to the boy in the back seat and offered him a tissue for those tears.

--------------

Over a century ago the Exile Program known as Agent Smith was found floating within the ethos of the Matrix, lacking the code necessary to form a permanent shell or much of a memory database, he was badly injured, and living between the seen Matrix and the unseen Matrix. Taken from this limbo he was repaired. Physically his code was repaired. Mentally he was taught to speak again, quickly learning his colorful vocabulary once more. Once all this was done his trial under the Zero-One Zion Council now including half mechanical and half men members. Screens were set up so that their Matrix living programs could as well testify and Smith could face his accusers.

There were a list of prosecutions against both machine kind and man kind, but only four people testified in Smith's favor. The Oracle, the Architect, Agents Jones, and Agents Brown.

Upon the question of why he did it, there was a defense that he malfunctioned. "The goal of an Agent is to purge the Matrix of threats, upon Smith's new found individuality coinciding with this programming it can be said his judgment was impaired." The Architect said. "I program the Agents very strenuously, they are key opponents to the Matrix, and I did not want them developing what Smith developed. He was not able to handle what was given to him, I believe a human would say it is like trying to put a camel through the eye of a needle."

"Why did you do it?" Zion and Zero-One finally asked Smith.

"Because I chose to." Smith answered, simply, looking beside him to the Architect.

"You chose to?"

"I wanted to."

"You did?"

"I hate you." Smith said flatly. "I may stand here and you in reality, but I hate you, and I want you to die. I chose to attempt to kill all of you, because I hate you, and because of that I wanted to."

There was no more talk of inevitability, there was no more talk of purpose. Agent Smith died after believing that he was merely doing his purpose, and upon his resurrection he saw the error of his ways. It was not purpose that drove him to such extremes, it was not faulty programming, it was himself.

But it was the Oracle who gave the final word over Smith's judges. She looked to Smith and she asked him,

"When did you smell those smells?" She asked him.

"March 11, 1962." Smith said, like a machine.

"Do you find anything odd about that date, Smith?" She asked.

And for a moment everyone was silent.

"That is when Thomas A Anderson was born." Smith finally said.

It was said by the Oracle, that there is something between Smith and Neo, this program and The One, unimaginable by human and unaccounted for by machines. From the birth of The One Smith began to undergo a change that would lead him here. They are somehow intertwined, perhaps by code, or a more important level. And due to this apparent connection to the One it would be wrong to kill him, for we may be destroying The One's gateway back into this plane of existence. It was questioned what then if not kill him, what would they do with the program that nearly wiped out all life. The non-believers of Neo however would agree that a greater punishment than death was life in a world Smith despised, the Matrix, of which he attempted so hard to escape.

Thus life was granted to Smith under the condition of complete surveillance at all times and limited access to pretty much anything. The Architect was told my Machine Government to create "barriers" in Smith's coding that would prevent him of anything that could pose a threat to anything. He was given to the Oracle for safekeeping and was to check in with both a Machine representative and Human representative each week.

Incidentally Smith attempted to kill himself within the first week of his punishment. The Oracle had woken upon Sati's cries of fear at the deaf of the night. She entered the kitchen where nearly all the floor was covered in blood and saw Smith nodding to sleep from lack of blood with a knife in his hand and cuts on his wrist. Again he attempted a second time by jumping off the building making sure he'd land on his head, with Seraph catching him and throwing him into their apartment. Thirdly he drank some plumber fluid and went into shock. Fourth he tried to steal a gun from Seraph, but found Seraph had taken all bullets.

When asked why by the Oracle Smith stared at her.

"I will not be used." Smith said. "I will not be his door. I will not even give him the chance to come back." He said.

However it is a wonder how one can get over it after a few decades. Smith adjusted well after the first twenty years to his newfound life upon the prompting of what he would call friends Brown and Jones, who were retired from their lives as Agents by then, and under the protection of the Zion Safe House for Exiles.

It was then a side agency of man and machine was created for the specific purpose of searching for The One. Here the Oracle, Sati, Seraph, and Smith due to his connection, often worked.

They would bring each of them Potentials and with their insight they would judge weather or not it was The One or not.

It was in this manner that the Boy was found. The Boy was one of the higher potentials and thus was visited by either of the four them continually for a time along with others until it could be proven he was The One or not. For this The Boy has known Smith, Seraph, Sati, and the Oracle for all his life.

----------------

But this was the first time he had ever been to the Oracle's home in her small apartment in the bad side of town. He was at the moment getting prepared for bed, munching on a cookie, musing on the past gunfire with contempt. And there he walked over to the bedroom as saw Smith standing in the dark on the balcony. There the Boy walked over to Smith, and stood in obedient silence until the man in the suit acknowledged him.

"What?" Smith said full of frustration.

"…Want a cookie?" The Boy asked.

"No." Smith shook his head.

The Boy stood in the awkward silence.

"Are you sure it's me?" The Boy asked, hopeful there was a mistake.

"Yes." Smith said flatly.

"It could be a mistake…" The Boy tried.

"It is not." Smith told.

The Boy walked out further onto the balcony than where Smith stood, gazing at the Matrix that was before him.

"But I don't see the code, I see a building, Smith, it's right there!" The Boy was desperate and pointed, and Smith stood unmoved. "Even when you came over…I didn't want it to be me, I didn't want it to be me!" The Boy said.

The Boy's eyes filled with familiar anger that Smith knew so very well, and he merely stood in the night with his sunglasses on. The Boy stared at those dark glasses and panted in frustration, knowing that there was no way out of this now. There was no use fighting it. He could never been an engineer, he had to be Neo.

"Did you all always know?" The Boy asked.

"I did." Smith said. "From the moment I saw you."

"How?"

"I could smell it."

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Because the others did not believe me, they did not want me to tell you prematurely. But I knew." Smith said.

The Boy looked to Smith with pathetic eyes, begging for him to lie about this all, begging for ignorance that he would be denied. For it was the One who saw all, and knew all, and knew not of blissful ignorance, and this fact scared the Boy more than anything.

"May I ask you a question?" Smith said and the boy nodded. "Do you like me?" The boy nodded. "That alone is evidence enough that you are Him. No one likes me. I am the bane of existence and all machine and man kind." Smith said with a hint of pride in his voice. "Now, why do you like me?" Smith continue.

"I don't know, you're like a dad to me…" The Boy tried. "You seem sad."

"Why?"

"What?"

"I have never given you that implication yet you assume it based off a perception only the One could possibly have. You like me, Mr. Anderson, because I am familiar to you, because within me is a part of what was once you. And it is instinctive now, you cannot comprehend it yet, but there is a connection between you and I, Mr. Anderson that shall forever enact as a binding mechanism between us, weather we wish it to or not. Not even I can completely see it, or understand it, but I feel it, like I smell you, Mr. Anderson."

"Please don't call me that."

"Why don't you like it?"

The Boy shook his head.

"Does it remind you of what happened, Mr. Anderson?"

"Stop it."

"How I shot you in the chest and emptied my gun. How I stabbed fire into your eyes until they burnt away."

"Stop it, Smith!"

"How I held you by the neck, forced you back to the ground, and took over your mind, body, and if there is, your soul."

"STOP IT!" The boy cried.

"Is everything all right?" Seraph asked stepping onto the balcony.

"Yes." Smith told him. "We are just bickering, as can be expected." Smith gave a bit of a grin to Seraph who nodded.

"You tell me if there is any trouble." Seraph told the boy as he left.

Smith turned again to the Boy who was looking very discontent.

"You don't have to remember that all, if you don't want to. You have a choice." Smith said. "If you want to know about it, you may ask me."

"What was he like?"

"What were you like?"

"No. Him." The Boy was precise.

Smith paused for a moment as if recalling it all, then he began to slowly approach the boy, grabbing a lawn chair for him to sit upon. He made it critical to sit to the level of the Boy's and that is when he took off his sunglasses, and for the first time the Boy saw those blue eyes and was somehow filled with fear.

"Thomas A Anderson, the A did not stand for anything, it was his middle name. I do not know the motivation for this name, however I have noticed that it makes his name mean 'A Son of Man.'" Smith grinned to this. "File number 3809940TAA, Born March 11, 1962, in lower downtown central city, son of Michelle McGahey and John Anderson, exceptional student in mathematics and science, some skills in history and English, and quite the sportsman. However his mother died early and due to a then alcoholic father Thomas A Anderson experiences trouble with authority figures and has an impaired social life, finding refugee in a life of computers. Within him was the Source Code of the Matrix, and he was predestined and planned out to return to the Source and begin an initial restart of the entire system." Smith said.

"But…what was he like?" The Boy asked again.

Smith took another moment to consider.

"He was in love." Smith stated first. "Deprived of such a thing I suppose in life he relished to the point of selfishness in his love for that woman."

"Trinity."

"Yes. Trinity. He was strong willed, as if attempting to prove himself to someone, probably me really I did talk down to him quite a bit. He did not like being The One, he was confused, and he did not like having control over his life. He did not like the sense of purpose as I embraced it. He was aware of his Messiah status, and he did not like it, for he feared becoming a religious figure as such he was often avoiding of Zion inhabitants that believed in him. He was angry and frustrated at the world for doing this to him. And in the end when he had nothing left, did he go far beyond any other human in consciousness, to a point only I can speculate, where he said he had a choice, and he chose to do what he wanted."

Then Smith leaned in.

"And I feel him, within me, a burning desire, a raging longing, a feeling that often gives me emotions I would otherwise not have. It is a burning desire for freedom, made more intense by his coding. I feel a calmness as well, a very human sense of relaxation at times, an easiness of my mind that a mechanical creature should not have. And I have a sense that I am close to the Source, and for some reason I have the idea that it is warm." Smith told him.

But the boy shook his head.

"I'm not that, Smith. It's not fair." The Boy said.

"No it is not, but it is our purpose." Smith said.

"But we are not free. From it, the purpose."

"We are always free, Mr. Anderson. It may be our purpose, yet it is our choice to carry it out or not."

To this Smith stood and walked over to the edge of the balcony where he laid his hands down over the edge. The Boy went over and joined him.

"Will people always try to kill me?" The Boy asked.

Smith turned down to the young child and put his hand over the Boy's shoulder, rubbing it in a rather loving manner.

"Of course." Smith said. "But I will protect you."

"I thought you hated him." The Boy said.

"True. However, I choose to fulfill my purpose, and that requires you, Mr. Anderson." Smith said.

"What is our purpose?" The Boy asked.

"Who knows anymore?" Smith said.

"I thought you weren't allowed a gun." He said.

"There are exceptions." Smith grinned. "Soon I will take you to a construct, and I will teach you to fire a gun. And I will teach you the martial arts." Smith said.

"You will?"

"Of course, The One should know how to defend himself."

They heard the Oracle's voice calling for the Boy, and he looked over up to Smith, who nodded and prompted him to go with a push. The Boy walked off, looking back at Smith who turned his gaze back out towards the world.


	2. Age 15

Smith would admit remnants of hatred remained in him, but they were not specific, they were not directed at Mr. Anderson in particular, he just had hate in his heart. Probably it was mere anger at the world for the life he had been given. He did not know what to think of his life any more. It had been five years since the Boy was revealed to be Thomas A Anderson, Neo, The One, the Source, and each day the Boy would come to Smith, to what was familiar, to what was his other half. The years had gone by and the Boy looked more and more like Anderson, he feared the Boy would grow to have his exact face, to which Smith would be very uncomfortable, as Smith had mused most of his life since of smashing that skull of which that face was supported by.

The Boy had grown in height and his hair grew long enough for a haircut, his brown eyes grew larger and wiser, more observant, and Smith was rather sure he would see the code sooner rather than later by then. The Boy had been trained in martial arts by Seraph, foresight and visions by the Oracle, guns and discipline by Smith, and Sati kept the Boy rightfully a child. Almost despite the Boy's previous incarnation he would go to Smith in all times of his downtime. And would ask for Smith to act as bodyguard whenever there were times when he could go out.

Smith did not know how to feel about it.

He was quite fond of the boy, who showed loyalty only matched by fellow Agents, and was even sporting some of Smith's vocabulary by then. He admired the child's endurance as Smith once locked him on the roof while it was raining once and didn't receive many complaints apart from Seraph and Sati.

It was a strange thing to see Mr. Anderson, but not have it be Mr. Anderson. To have that Boy grow into what would be The One but welcome Smith with smiles instead of the finger. Smith did not know this would happened, he had anticipated to merely wait for their purpose to come up and fulfill it, there was little else he was living for but that moment where he would most likely die, and hopefully not return again.

Currently the boy and he were playing chess. The Boy sat with his fingers to his mouth and his eyes intensely predicting any possible moves. He sat in the lotus position and was at any moment ready for meditation.

"I'll beat you some day." The Boy sighed, giving up and putting his King wide open for the final blow.

Smith began to reset the chessboard.

"I had a dream last night." The Boy said.

"Did you?"

"It was a nightmare. There was some guy in a suit, and it was raining, and he wouldn't shut the fuck up." The Boy smiled. "I can even remember what he said! Feeble constructs of a human mind trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose, and all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself." The boy smiled. "Right? Did I get it right?"

Smith looked at him with utter indifference.

"I said 'Constructs of a feeble human mind.'" Smith corrected.

"Damn!" The Boy laughed.

"Did you at least see the fight?" Smith asked.

"No."

"Well, I beat the piss out of you." Smith grinned. "Just so you know."

"You're exaggerating." The Boy said.

"No I'm not." Smith shook his head.

"Sati is he…" He called across the room.

"No he's not!" Sati called back from the living room.

"Damn it, I sound like a pussy." The Boy laughed.

The day was soon approaching, the day that the Boy was to be unplugged from the Matrix upon his choosing, and he decided that it was a good time to leave and begin training elsewhere, but of course there would be frequent visits back here, to Smith and to everyone.

"It's time." Seraph entered.

The Boy had said his goodbyes and promises on his visits, he'd have to help out with those cookies after all, and training Sati. And then they had left, gone out the door, and were in their black car, driving to the meeting point. The Boy took one last look at the world the Matrix of which he had grown so fond of, and they past a place where he ate good noodles.

They began walking off into the abandoned buildings where humanity made their exits for their own kind and Machines supervised it all. The walk towards the empty buildings was long and through rows of humanity at its worst, drug addicts, the homeless, drunks walking the streets. But as the Boy followed Smith and Seraph he turned his head to see a girl. The Girl.

He stared at her from across the road, and somehow he knew.

"Trinity?" The Boy asked beneath his breath.

She walked away, turning the corner and away from his view without even noticing him. The Boy panicked in a familiar sense of love.

"Smith! Seraph!" The Boy called and ran off.

The two immediately followed him as he ran off into a marketplace without stopping, only concerned with finding that girl, the Girl, that somehow he just knew, was her, it had to be, he saw it, he felt it, Smith would say he smelled it in the air, it was her. He hadn't even seen Trinity beyond his dreams but he knew that was her. He ran and randomly and in a panic chose a street to follow and run down. Smith and Seraph separated to attempt to find him.

The Boy continued on running further and further without stopping undeterred by anything, until finally he realized he didn't see the Girl anymore. He stopped for a moment to look around and see where he was as he panted.

"He's alone!"

"Now!" He heard.

That was when he heard gunfire.

"The Frenchman's not gonna let you get him again, you little bastard!"

The Merovingian. His men. How long had they been there? All his life? Firing upon him since he was nine years old? Wanting him dead, seeking and seeking but having Smith or Seraph always defeat him. But what about then, what about now? The Boy was paralyzed in the realization he could not stop bullets, and was going to die.

And as they fired he was pushed to the ground, and Smith stood above him firing his Desert Eagle widely, taking out gunman. Until henchman themselves jumped from the skies, men that did not even look like men, monsters, vampires, ghosts, were more like it, but not men. First four came towards them and Smith kicked two in the face at the same time, leaning in to punch another in the gut, and whip his other foot around to kick the fourth. The Boy got up to stand and watched as a nearby monster began to get up. Six years of training told him to kick the monster, but he didn't do just that, he ran up that monster, like he was a rap, standing on his chest and kicking him in the face in a manner his previous self loved to do.

More of them came from what seemed nowhere, Smith having to hit one in the face with his empty gun, while he reloaded it at the same time. He grabbed another by the throat and threw him into two other monsters, while turning and shattering the rib cage with a punch to an approaching monster. Smith was pulled by another monster by the tie and punched in the face then kicked in the rib cage. Smith got it together to brag the foot and swing him into the ground, where the Boy landed on the monster's face.

Then there was gunfire, and Smith dodged those bullets, running over to the Boy with the speed of an Agent and moving him out of the path of the bullets.

"Jesus Christ!" The Boy screamed.

More gunfire hailed from the sky and Smith pulled the Boy along with him away, dancing through bullet paths. But then suddenly the Boy tripped, and Smith stood three feet away as bullets continued, in a moment the two stared at each other, positive and negative, yin and yang, the light and the dark, and the Boy looked to Smith as a father figure, and Smith looked to the Boy almost as a son, and ran over to him standing over him, and shielding him as he was shot twelve times in various places.

And then Smith stood and blood ran down his mouth and onto the staring Boy whose eyes shook from the fear.

"…Smith?" The Boy asked.

Smith fell over with a noise that sounded like a whisper that was trying to be a word.

"SMITH!" The Boy screamed.

The Boy heard laughter from the Frenchman's monsters behind him.

"It's like killing two birds with one stone!" They said.

The Boy stood then, careful and stumbling, he stood and faced the gunmen who surrounded him in all directions. He stared at their smiling faces and their smirks and the pleasure he saw in their eyes. He shut his eyes and opened them, and he could see the Green Code of the Matrix.

And he had enough.

"No." The Boy whispered.

They fired, and each bullet stopped before The Boy, and he stared at their coding, watching the very essence of their life, the Source in the light that shown from their green codes. He watched as the code changed based upon their expressions, movements, feelings, thoughts, and he saw what they were thinking. They thought together, we're too late.

They dropped their guns and they ran.

And the bullets fell to the ground into the blood of Former Agent Smith. The Boy looked down at Smith who rolled to his side to cough up some blood as red spread over his white collar shirt. The Boy cried out and fell to his knees, grabbing Smith by the arm and shoulder.

"Are you okay!?" The Boy screamed.

"This hurts more than I thought it would." Smith spat.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God." The Boy panicked then pushed his hands over the bullet wounds, attempting to cover them. "We have to stop the bleeding."

Smith laughed at the irony of all this, so this was it, this is how he would die.

"Don't worry Seraph will be here soon, some one will be here soon!" The Boy screamed.

"It's okay, Neo." Smith started.

"Don't call me that!" The Boy said. "You're not going to die!"

"I'll just come back…"

"But I don't want you to! I want you like this! Smith, don't die…please don't die…" The Boy tried.

And tears began to form as the Boy tried so hard to do something.

"I can take the bullets out!" The Boy said. "I know I could! And…and then I'll learn to fly, and I'll teach you, I'll teach you, it can't be that hard…" The Boy said.

Smith only smiled.

"That's thoughtful…" Smith said.

"Smith…don't die. You're the negative! The Yin to my Yang! You can't…" The Boy still tried.

"It ends tonight…" Smith mused.

He grabbed the Boy by the chin to lift his face to look at him. Just one last time, to see the face of the future Mr. Thomas A Anderson. Smith knew somewhere that he was probably going to come back in anther body, another face. He looked back upon his miserable life, where there was only indifference, anger, sorrow, pain, death, and of which the only smiles he shared were with this Boy, that he help raise, and grow to be this young Man.

He appreciated the Boy. He was thankful he got to meet his Neo from the beginning, even if this child wasn't really Neo. He was now Neo with a better vocabulary.

"I know it does. I've seen it." The Boy finished with a smile. "Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you persist?" The Boy said.

"Because I choose to." Smith finished.

"Okay I got one, um…What good is a phone call if you don't have a mouth to speak?" The Boy came up with.

Smith shook his head, putting his hand to his mouth and making mumbling sound that made the two of them laugh a bit or as much as Smith could laugh at the time. He could feel the holes the bullets made get bigger with the rushing blood flowing out of them. He thought he could feel a bullet enter his what was his coded liver and another a lung, but the rest of them he wasn't really too sure. But he did not want to think about that, he wanted to look at this Boy, Neo.

"Okay, here um. Look past the flesh, look through the soft gelatin of these dull cow eyes and see your enemy…" The Boy said.

"No…" Smith said.

"Oh yes, Mr. Anderson."

"It can't be…"

"There is nowhere I can't go, there is nowhere where I won't find you…"

"It's impossible."

"Not impossible. Inevitable."

Inevitable.

That was the story of his life.

Smith grinned one last time, look at the life he had lived. Then he closed his eyes and he thought about that life, and he thought about what he'd done to the world, and he thought about what he could have done to the world. Then his hands went limp, the breathing stopped, the beating ceased, and The Boy watched as his code went dim.

"Goodbye, Mr. Anderson." The Boy finished.

-----------------

He was only to act as a door. A component so the new One could enter this world. But he was not fit for the coming trials, his heart was ruined with Hate already, his mind was bound by the centuries of his life. He was too old, obsolete for what was to come. He had to be reborn.

He deserved it really. To be born again, free of that hate, free of all that pain.

And so, The Boy, now the Man, going by the name of Oen, walked down the hall where the Potentials were kept, looking in on them through one way mirrors, seeking, searching for the familiar, the piece that he lacked. She walked by his side, Trinity of the new time, her name was Kari. She held his hand as he looked stern into each one of their faces.

Until he stopped at a young looking man, dressed in a dirty black collar shirt with a white tie loosened and leaning on the wall with a look of utter contempt. And Oen pointed.

"Him." He said.

"You sure?" Kari asked him. "It says he's an Exile, used to be a Machine on the outside, apparently a repair unit."

"Yes. I'm sure."

"His name's Relic."

Dark Times were coming. Smith would have not accepted it, would have not allowed it, would have not survived. In death he would live again in a form that was clean and free.

He deserved that.

And Oen entered the room to shake his hand.

"Hello, Mr. Smith."

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I couldn't get the image of Smith protecting a young version of Neo, and then I couldn't get the image of Smith dying before that boy. Then I just had to figure out why Smith would die, and I think this is a rather fitting reason.

Love, Mae


End file.
